Snatching Fish

1. Snatching Fish, $200, 11 x 17 inches including frame

Man tries to catch a fish by hand and misses.

Snatching Fish

Forgetting his net, a bell-shaped retriever,
the villager tries to catch his dinner
by hand but slippery eels and other species
of underwater life are onto that trap;
those fingers waving come on, they think,
are more obvious than hook and worm.

Let’s swim for safer waters, one fish
tells his school, let’s ride the waves
of our territory, all forty by five wide
on the plateau where 30 species
of snails are apt hide. Let’s surprise them,

but the surprise is on the fish,
as one swishes then leaps out of the water and
falls accidentally into the hands of a mother
pausing along the shore before making dinner,
the moral: some have it easier than others.